ROS A rubiOginofa.
Sweet Briar, or Eglantine.
IC0SANDR1A Polygynia.
Gen. Char. Cal. urn-fhaped, flefhy, contracted at
the orifice, terminating in 5 fegments. Petals 5.
Seeds numerous,' briftly, fixed to the infide of the
calyx.
Spec. Char. Fruit ovate, briftly as well as the
flower-ftalks. Prickles of the ftem hooked.
Leaflets elliptical, clothed beneath with rufty-
coloured glands.
S y n . Rofa rubiginofa. Linn. Manl. 2. 564. Sm. FI.
Brit. 540. With. 466. Hull. h i . Relh. 193.
Sibth. 158. Abbot, wo.
R. eglanteria. Hudf. 218.
R. lylveftris odora. Rail Syn. 454.
C jrA TH E R ED by Mr. Sowerby at Batterfea. It grows in
many parts of England truly wild, on a gravelly or fandy
foil, flowering in June and July. It is familiar to every one
in gardens, and makes beautiful and fragrant, though not
very long-lived, hedges. Its fize and habit agree with that
in our laft plate; but the leaflets are generally more elliptical,
of a bright green, but flightly hairy above, clothed
beneath with reddifh vifcid glands, and eminently diftinguifhed
by their mod fragrant fmell, often compared to that of apples,
though much more univerfally agreeable. The flowers are of
a more conftant and deeper red than other wild rofes, and alfo
fmell pleafantly. The fruit is ovate, briftly, (though often
fmooth when cultivated,) fcarlet, farinaceous and infipid.
The generality of poets, “ for poets they are called by
themfelves and their admirers,” confound the woodbine and
the eglantine, but they err with Milton. Shakfpeare, though
generally charged with this fault, is clear of i t a t lead the
paflage in queftion is moft probably to be read thus—
“ So doth the woodbine, the fweet honeyfuckle,
“ Gently entwift the maple.”
See Johnfon and Steevens’s Shakfpeare, voh v. 121.